>This thread is very amusing............... Canabalism, as we understand the>term today, did NOT EXIST!

You're sure about that now?

>The idea of cannibalism dates back to the Greeks, and probably before that.

Probably.

>As for the groups that were cannabilistic, the word as WE understand it still>doesn't apply. Anthropophagy is a more correct term. The Aztecs, for>instance, would sacrifice a worthy enemy and make a "ritualistic"--key word>here--meal of maize stew with pieces of the victim's flesh in it.

What percentage of the animal protein consumed by aztecs came from humans?
The number of human victims sacrificed to the sun was enormous, and
constituted the primary ideological justification for the aztec wars of
conquest. But the sun was only interested in human hearts; what about all
the other meat which was rolled down the pyramid steps? Without cattle, or
sheep, or domesticated pigs, the mesoamerican civilisations had a notable
lack of farmed flesh. The aggressive aztec policies of conquest and
enslavement have often been seen as acting in the service of religion, to
provide sacrificial hearts for ritual purposes. But perhaps this overlooks
a more prosaic motive. People like to eat meat. Did the aztecs hunger for
corn-fed olmec? Was that why they built the temple of the sun; to take the
curse off the long pig?